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### Lagrangian formalism and dissipative systems [duplicate]

Why the central concepts of classical mechanics, viz. Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms cannot address constraint forces like friction and others in dissipative systems?
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### Which class of Dynamical Systems is governed by Lagrangian Dynamics? [duplicate]

Lagrangian formalism is a technique using which we can obtain the time evolution of a dynamical system. Given a dynamical system, can we say whether or not we can write down a Lagrangian (solving it ...
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### Can a Lagrangian be defined for arbitrary physical systems? [duplicate]

For physical systems with conservative forces, we can define a potential function $V$, and a Lagrangian $L=T-V$. At first, I thought that lagrangian mechanics only applied to systems with conservative ...
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### What are holonomic and non-holonomic constraints?

I was reading Herbert Goldstein's Classical Mechanics. Its first chapter explains holonomic and non-holonomic constraints, but I still don’t understand the underlying concept. Can anyone explain it to ...
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### How do I show that there exists variational/action principle for a given classical system?

We see variational principles coming into play in different places such as Classical Mechanics (Hamilton's principle which gives rise to the Euler-Lagrange equations), Optics (in the form of Fermat's ...
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### Lagrangian and Hamiltonian EOM with dissipative force

I am trying to write the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian for the forced Harmonic oscillator before quantizing it to get to the quantum picture. For EOM $$m\ddot{q}+\beta\dot{q}+kq=f(t),$$ I write the ...
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### What causes a force field to be “non-conservative?”

A conservative force field is one in which all that matters is that a particle goes from point A to point B. The time (or otherwise) path involved makes no difference. Most force fields in physics ...
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### The Role of Friction in The Lagrangian

I'm pretty new to physics (I am presently taking AP Physics 1 though I am far ahead of that in math) and I was reading this paper that found the equations of motion for Atwood's machine using ...